Friday, February 24, 2012

Show Report: Noise Pop, last night

Countering my show-going slackness of the past few years, I'm actually going to 2 Noise Pop shows this year. (In case you're not from around these parts, as I explained in 2010: "Noise Pop is an annual music festival that takes place at different clubs (mostly) all over San Francisco.") Last night we went to see the Soft Pack, Shannon and the Clams, Fidlar and Surf Club at Cafe du Nord, one of the best venues in San Francisco because (1) it's centrally located (2) the sound is usually pretty good and (3) it's not a dump.

- Trumer was on sale for $3.50 each. That's a good fucking deal, even if you don't like Trumer all that much.

- Surf Club were young and fun. I liked the songs, but you couldn't hear the vocals AT ALL. Major pet peeve of mine.

- Shannon and the Clams were doing kind of a 50's thing and honestly it's not really my thing.

- The headliner was the Soft Pack. I had heard some of their stuff and liked it but this was one of those times when seeing the band made me like them less. Weird! I don't know, it just didn't sound like the songs were that well-thought-out. They all just kind of sounded the same to me. (Except for one song that sounded EXACTLY like Superchunk, speaking of Superchunk. I liked that one a lot.)

- OK, let's get to the good part. FIDLAR is the good part. First off, here's their deeply weird video for "Wake Bake Skate" (no, it's not Shakespeare, it's surf punk).

Hmmmm, for some reason it doesn't seem as great today as it did last night. Maybe you need to be about 6 beers in to really appreciate it. Whatever, it was fun.

ANYWAY, good times. Try and make it to a show if you can.

(Noise Pop has been around since 1993, but I think my first NP show was Beulah and Mates of State at Bottom of the Hill in 2001. I think.)

In other news, this is a tree in my backyard. Can anyone tell me what kind of tree it is? This isn't a quiz and there are no prizes. I just want to know what kind of tree it is.

7 comments:

Yay! We're seeing Bob Mould tonight at BOTH, with Jon Wurster on drums -- playing Copper Blue in its entirety! Anyway, that pic is kind of tough to see, can you post one that's more close-up? It looks like an Acacia Longifolia but I'm not totally sure. Does it look like this close-up?

pretty sure it's a "buckeye tree" - flowers smell interesting, then they turn into these huge nuts (which indigenous population used to boil out the poison and smash to eat). Lots all over the bay area.

About Me

TK lives and works in San Francisco. He occasionally travels to places east of the Caldecott Tunnel, but not very often. His interests include bars, reality TV, and irony. Things seem to be going fine.